Incompatibility
A couple of weeks ago, Trueman returned from work late on a Friday afternoon with a brand new bicycle in the back of the SUV. The bicycle is an Upland Patrol, which is an inexpensive but nice mountain bike sold at the PX. I've been wanting to take up bicycling with Abby since it will give her a much better workout than just walking around the neighborhood and playing in the yard, and since she runs at a faster pace than I do.
Running next to a bicycle doesn't come naturally to most dogs, and there's a certain amount of training that needs to go into the process before you can enjoy a fun ride with your dog happily trotting along. Fortunately for us, Abby already knows a whole pile of commands that come in handy for bicycling: heel to keep her next to the bike, slow to get her to slow down, stop to stop (usually followed by sit for sitting down), left to turn left and right to turn right.
We've been doing a lot of short runs to get her used to the whole process and to polish the commands a bit while she's running next to the bike. I keep her on her normal rope lead, which I'm holding between the palm of my hand and the handlebar of my bike. That way, I can just lift my hand to drop the leash if there's ever a need. I also use her prong collar for this, just as a safety measure. Our short runs are usually around two miles and take us through our immediate neighborhood and the little roads branching off our "main" (if you want to call it that) road.
Things have been going real well.
That is, until Abby decided that she had to stop and poop while we were going down the road at a pretty good speed. No warning, no whine, no uncomfortable look, no slowing down. She just up and squatted in the middle of a run. Guess what I learned? Even if you just have the leash between your hand and the handle bar, it's not physically possible to just "let go".
Road rash. Gotta love it.
That was actually taken last night, not when it first happened. The funny thing is, I was actually wearing long pants (Nike running pants) and it didn't even tear the pants. In case it's not obvious, that's my right knee.
5 Complaints:
Ow!
Yup, I guess pooping and running would be incompatible!
Then you had to scoop it, too!
The worst part of my motorcycle, aside from the damage to the bike and my ego, was the road rash. I had a lot of it under my knee cap and each time I would move the leg it would crack the scab.
Unpleasant.
YOWCHERS!
By the way - I'm sorry for my long absence from your blog - will send an email soon to let you know what was going on. I love the way you've spruced up the place with teh kittehs.
Ouch MG!
I hope I didn't create a problem! Ilsa loves to go bike riding. I've found that a cruiser style bike works best, simply because it ismore stable than the sporty mountain and road bikes. You can also respond to the dog, if need be, with your hands, while braking with your feet, a definite plus.
But if they stop to poop, well whatcha gonna do but meet pavement? At least you didn't land in the dig pile!
Xavier -
No, you had nothing to do with this mess at all. This was entirely my fault.
Abby usually goes on her second trip outdoors during the day. We usually go out to walk or bicycle three times a day. Once first thing in the morning, once in the late afternoon, and once before going up to bed. Abby tends to poop on the second outing so if we're going to bicycle, I first run her around the yard chasing a ball to get her bowels going so that she'll poop before we head out on our bike ride.
Which has been working quite well except that we changed foods last week. We went from raw to Merrick's Before Grain. (Reason being that we no longer have a one-stop place that carries all our raw ingredients, and having to drive all over just is not cost effective.)
When changing food, it's important to give them more chances to eliminate during the change-over process. Something I did not think about after she pottied and we headed out on the bike ...
Thus - my fault.
Incidentally, that is a seriously cool post about teaching your dog to run next to a bicycle. One thing you could / should add is that people should not take dogs younger than 1 year on leashed runs or bike rides unless it's at the puppy's pace - too much risk to injury for those growing bones. (And you know how people are: if you don't specifically point it out, they don't think of it.)
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